Joyce Meyer – Moving Beyond Worry and Anxiety

Joyce says, “You can choose your own thoughts; you don’t have to just think whatever falls in your head. You can cast out wrong things and choose right things.”

That reminded me of something I saw on Twitter yesterday: @Leyla_N tweeted, “Thoughts come & go, you don’t have to believe them all. Choose empowering thoughts… take empowering actions.”

Its important to heed this advice because, as Joyce goes on to say, our thoughts are the place where worry really starts.

When faced with a problem, we can either worry or we can choose to trust God.

At this point in the video, Joyce said, “Worry, anxiety, reasoning – three major torments in our life.” I don’t think I fully understand what she means there. I really value reasoning as I think it can be an extremely powerful life guide. Is she suggesting that we forfeit all reason in favor of complete trust in God? Or was she simply saying that reasoning is one of our bigger problems – which I agree it iscan be. Reasoning is a powerful tool but too often in my own life I use it ultimately against myself. I try and reason my way in or out of things rather than follow my heart or my intuition. This goes hand in hand with over analyzing. In fact, this is one of the tougher balances for me to achieve in my life.

Joyce uses the word “violent” in reference to how we should cast out our negative thoughts. And I liked that because sometimes that’s how intense it needs to be! To think to yourself “I’ll probably fail” or “I can’t”… is there any room for those thoughts in your mind? There shouldn’t be. And when you find yourself thinking them, you should cast them out with force.

I read a piece of advice awhile back (I think it was inSecrets of the Millionaire Mindby T. Harv Eker – which, by the way, is an excellent book and one that I think everyone – literally everyone – should read!) that relates to this. It says that every time you have a negative thought, you should think (or even say aloud) “CANCEL.” And the theory is that this will help you to break the habit of negativity.

Next in the video, Joyce talks about being passive – which has been a real topic of interest for my lately. More and more I’m seeing how being passive is one of the worst things to do. Its so inefficient – nothing gets done. And when something does get done, its all you can do to hope it turned out how you would have wanted it. Being passive means not taking control of your own life. It involves sitting around, waiting, wishing. And as Joyce says, it requires no backbone. You think someone else should solve the problem.

Instead, Joyce suggests we be “aggressive against the enemy” (and here she’s referring to Satan, but we can also consider it to be any negative influence in our lives – such as my lack of motivation and passive behavior.) Stand up for yourself – there doesn’t have to be someone to stand up against, just take action and make change and accomplish something.

Now she makes a distinction here: “Worry sees the problem but faith sees the God who can handle the problem.” She says its not wrong to look at the problem – we need to look at it so that we can analyze it and figure out where it stands. But its a slippery slope to worrying and over analyzing.

She commented on the interesting social norm that some people feel like they aren’t being a good parent if they don’t worry about their kids. It made me think about the other areas of life where we’re encouraged to worry. I myself have been conditioned to feel pressure to worry about my future. Everything from getting good grades to getting into college, (you know the cycle) to picking a “realistic” major, getting a good job, paying your bills, etc. Basically: not messing up. These are great things to be aware of, and to keep in mind when making decisions and planning your life. And by no means am I suggesting you should ignore them or just completely wing it and hope for the best.

But the amount of pressure we can feel just causes us to have FEAR. Fear of messing up. Do you know anyone who has never messed up and who won’t continue to mess up? Its unavoidable, and that’s why this is a completely, completely irrational fear, and that is what’s unrealistic. (For some wise words on being realistic, check out this Will Smith video, at 5:49 in.)

What may be worse is the irony at play – I’m way less likely to take chances to better my life because of this fear of failure that I have, because of the fear of messing up my life, which stems from worry. But the likely outcome is that I will just create more to worry about! Whereas if I just trust in God (or trust in myself and my intelligence and my abilities, or whatever) then chances are, things would work out for me.

Joyce says that when we have trust, we can enjoy the journey. She also says, “When you pray and then you worry, the worry nullifies your prayer. Prayer is something you do instead of worry. Its not something you do with worry, its what you do instead of worry. … If we pray and then worry, we’re saying with our mouth that we’re depending on God but we’re saying with our actions that we don’t really believe that God’s going to come through so we’re going to worry and have a backup plan just in case he doesn’t.”

This makes me wonder how to find the balance between responsibility, avoidance, and trust. Is it safe to perhaps deny our seemingly bad situation under the trust that it will work out? Is it irresponsible to allow things to stay the same and not actively change them ourselves? And if we decide to make a change, how will we know when we are acting from ourselves (ie the backup plan) or acting from God? When our problem gets solved, was it us or was it God? How long do we trust God before giving up and trying to solve it ourselves?

But perhaps there isn’t some spiritual equilibrium to find. Perhaps no balance is required at all. Perhaps all we need is to trust in God. Maybe what’s unbalanced is when we decide to trust ourselves, because we are not nearly as deserving of trust as God is. (I guess then its a question of credibility.)

Having complete trust in God requires a huge level of surrender. Not only is that scary, but if it turns out to be a bad idea, then in hindsight it was pretty irresponsible and potentially dangerous. This worries me.

For me, I find that the subject of faith and worry is a catch 22. I worry about something, then wonder if I should just trust God. But as I’m not a religious person and thus not strong in any faith, I worry that trusting God might not be the correct solution. So now I’m not only worried about my initial problem but also about whether or not I should be worried. (And I do see the humor in this.)

It seems to me, that for someone who has faith that God exists and that He is good, then trusting Him completely is obviously the way to go. Why would you ever not trust Him? And if you trust Him, then it would make sense to also trust His timing. (I like this pin on Pinterest.) I see the logical progression here but what I am waiting on is that first acceptance. The acceptance that God exists. When/If I come to that conclusion, then I have a whole line of beliefs that will come with it. But its that first one, which determines the validity of the others.

That’s where my interest in Christianity lies, I suppose. In learning more and finding out more about God. And in the hopes that I will learn more about myself in the process.

I’ll conclude with a few lines that I particularly enjoyed from the video:

“God is greater than any problem that you have.”

“You’re talkin’ to yourself anyway, you might as well start saying something that makes sense!”

Do you have complete trust in God? How do you balance having faith and taking personal responsibility for the course of your life?

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6 thoughts on “Joyce Meyer – Moving Beyond Worry and Anxiety”

God has used Joyce Meyer to change my life. I have read many of her books including the one that literally started a revolution of my mind. It is her best seller, “Battlefield of the Mind.” I can’t recommend it enough and to this day i use it as a guide when I get out of balance. It is deep but well worth the read. It began a journey for me that is a walk of love for Christ which changes our thoughts. Joyce is my hero!